Russia drops Wikipedia ban after cannabis content is edited

Wikipedia was blocked over village's protest

Russia's communications regulator removed Wikipedia from its list of banned websites on Tuesday after an article in the online encyclopedia about an illegal drug was edited to comply with local laws.

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, had asked Internet service providers to block an entry about charas, a form of cannabis. To comply, the carriers had to restrict access to Wikipedia's entire site because its secure communication protocol doesn't allow the blocking of individual articles, the watchdog said in a statement.

Wikipedia was blocked by several regional Internet providers in Russia overnight, according to the RBC newswire. Wikipedia had advised users to use browsers or sites that allow anonymous communication to retain access. Roskomnadzor has the power to prohibit access to Internet pages that advocate drug use, suicide or extremism, according to Russian laws.

"Roskomnadzor changed its mind at the last minute and refrained from blocking the website," said Irina Levova, a director at the Moscow-based Internet Research Institute. "This would have been a blow to government's image."

The recent battle between Russian authorities and Wikipedia started in a village called Chyorny Yar (population: less than 8,000) in southern Russia.

A prosecutor in the village was concerned about a Wikipedia entry on charas, a form of cannabis, though the reasons are unclear. Chyorny Yar appears to have no major problems with drug abuse - and apparently no cannabis fields.

According to Wikipedia, charas is a "hashish form of cannabis which is handmade in India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Nepal and Jamaica" - places far from Chyorny Yar.

The village prosecutor demanded that the Russian-language Wikipedia entry be deleted. A court in the village endorsed his position in June.

On Monday, Roskomnadzor asked service providers to block the Wikipedia page. Wikipedia, however, uses the https protocol for secure communication, which means Russian providers would have to block the whole Internet encyclopedia to enforce the ban on the charas entry.

Reddit, an entertainment and news website, faced a similar threat recently. Russian authorities briefly blocked it because of a thread about growing psilocybin mushrooms. The ban was revoked after the site restricted access to this thread in Russia.

The popularity of the Russian-language Wikipedia article on charas skyrocketed on the two days from 200-400 visits per day up to more than 193,000 on Tuesday.